As much as I like bitching about Windows 8, it doesn't even hold a candle to Windows ME as "Worst Windows OS". When I bought a Dell, Windows ME came pre-installed. It lasted about 1 week before I got rid of it. This was on a new computer. It was that bad.
Also Windows 2000 was pretty decent. I had a BP6 back in the day and if you were looking for Windows multiple CPU support (pre-multicore) it was the only game in town. Eventually Windows XP Professional came out and I switched to that, but only because 2000 lacked some of the consumer tweaks and XP was more compatible with gaming (the other being more of a business OS).
Then again the colossal failure of ME born XP, hopefully 8 can do the same motivation.
I used Vista since it came out until very recently when I built a Win7 system in the fall. (When I needed to build a new computer Windows 7 wasn't out)
Vista was a fine operating system that was implemented very poorly at the HW level. MS pushed it out too fast, or couldn't get HW buy in quick enough. Remember the whole "Designed for XP" scandal? Anyway yes Vista was painful at the beginning, simply because many many HW makers didn't have drivers ready, or those that did have drivers made them last minute and they were buggy. Over time this was resolved, and was no longer a problem.
When work upgraded from XP to Windows 7. I used both at the same time. It didn't bother me in the slightest. Some settings were accessible in a slightly different way, but nothing crazy. When I bought my dad a new laptop this summer, it came with WIn8 pre-loaded. Now that, just wow.
While I don't think I would go so far as to say that it was as bad as Windows ME, it was very frustrating to say the least.
Windows 7 also supports multiple cores with the Home version. Only XP Professional was able to use multiple cores. At the time the only other option was Windows 2000.
Had a BP6 back in the day, when having two cores actually meant the fun of two separate CPU.
It was -35C last week, and it is 4C today. ZOMG Climate Change must be happening!
A) People have been trying to predict the weather, for like forever. We have gotten better at it, but it is far from predictable. B) Climate Change Weather. Climate Change is about a global trend in temperature over a very long period of time, not short term local variance. C) It has been postulated that erratic or severe weather may be an eventual result of Climate Change, however I don't think I have ever seen it really proven in any way. D) Regardless of if you agree with the idea of climate change, these are things not correlated (let alone any causation) in any meaningful way. E) I am not sure if this is an article about human psychology, general ignorance, or the influence of political media (probably all 3).
I would add Multiplayer as a big thing. First off it is more and more a primary component to a game. Second consoles are moving in the always online direction. Consoles generally speaking do not do MMO's at all really. Finally the games that are out there, you are limited at best to about 16, usually 8-10 (with a few exceptions). Compare that with PC, and it is no contest. I was playing in 64 player games well over a decade ago.
Even with the new "cutting edge" consoles I have heard of nothing that addresses any of that, and is mostly an issue on the back end structure (or lack thereof) of these games. Everything is distributed off the client consoles. Either they don't want to run servers or have DRM issues. I don't see why MS or Sony doesn't just build some capacity and then rent it out to developers to use. Cost probably.
I have heard of games like Elder Scrolls: Online, but then hear rumors that it is really more like you will be able to play with 3 of your friends online like an updated version of Gauntlet or something...
So does anyone thing that increasing growth forever is possible or sustainable?
Putting horrible Window 8 and the growth in popularity of tablets aside for the moment, the summary actually says that they are down to the levels of 2009. Which at the time were the biggest ever (at the time). It is just like when people get all crazy about it being a 30 year temperature low or something. You mean that in as little as 30 years ago, it was slightly just less cold? And you are surprised and astounded by this?
Anyway, some have mentioned about power of computers being sufficient etc... even putting that aside, at some point after year over year growth in an industry that has been around for decades, where it has been getting cheaper and cheaper, at some point you are going to get a bit of market saturation, and along with ALL the other factors already mentioned here, a bit of a market correction. What should be surprising is that it is so small and it took this long to happen. There has also been a lot of consolidation among PC makers over the last 10 years...
I do know what a majority is. However if Harper or the Conservatives wish to have a hope in hell of getting elected again, they will avoid doing anything too right for fear or polarizing the left to defeat them. Which is why I assume they are doing things incrementally and trying to keep as low a profile as possible.
So yes, Harper could easily ram through a stupid law IF his party supports him in the decision, but would likely not remain in power much beyond that. At which point the new party would simply make a new law, and seeing as the old destroyed a political party, I doubt it would have much opposition.
Still yes due to our system, that could leave us vulnerable to a stupid law for a few years in the meantime, c'est la vie.
#2 and part of #7. Take office politics which can be disastrous enough, add in normal politics, then sprinkle partisan politics.
Mix in a healthy dose of blood sucking contractors in #5.
I think those would be the major reasons. Other things like the procurement and bidding process that must be followed can also cause issues.
All the political BS basically causes change orders ad infinitum, by groups trying to get credit, by groups trying to get funding, by groups trying to get power, by groups trying to make it intentionally fail, by groups trying to turn it to another purpose or agenda, etc...
The contractor doesn't give a shit, as they will have a contract that has something unrealistic, then a few lines that say, in the event of change orders, which they know will have a boat load, they will have zero accountability, just point a finger to all the changes, when then go back the the departments, who will all point fingers at each other, all the time the contractor will smile and draw out as long as possible as all the money will be beyond the original contract due to change orders.
Anyway if you could get some of the political interference out of the bureaucracy it would likely do a lot to avoid this mess in the future (though you will always have personal politics and office politics).
Ah yes that is it. Memory fuzzy. I heard about it with the declassification. Principle holds true, politicians have been jerks and using things like war for personal advantage since well forever.
Um No. As someone who has worked with remote sensing imagery the resolution is not all that good. Landsat is ancient and there are loads of other high resolution options. The resolutions these "swarms" have are not particularity good.
The interesting part is the in "real time" bit.
However in that I am even doubtful unless they are using very large values for "real" time.
Anyone that has worked with this kind of data will tell you A) it is usually HUGE, and B) marginally compresses. Data has to be sent from satellite to ground. That means transmission. At what speed? Unless they have discovered a way of sending data magically faster than the rest of the world, it is still constrained by that. In addition, most of the time these sorts of images need to be processed, and with the volume of data we are talking about, even machines with a lot of processing power can be pushed to the limit, doing small chunks for days.
That said, I would be really excited if it really worked. This would allow for all sorts of scientific observations, and resource management, and a host of other things. (if only in small limited areas which are predetermined by orbit)
I get a kick out of all the TV and movies like Enemy of the State depicting satellite tracking and zooming etc... Enhance! Sure it is possible that some secret agency somewhere has some magic technology that does this. Then again has your encounters with any other branch of government given you the idea that this might be a possibility?
Maybe the real story here is that that satellites are really cheap to build and launch, meaning that we may have access to half decent (1-5m resolutions) coverage over most of the globe soon most of the time. Still processing may be a problem. So rather than a very poor update measured in years, you might get something better is much less time. Maybe. I presume these are commercial, and will have to make a profit off these somehow. Selling the data to Google Maps perhaps?
Actually read the article. Which basically says that the NSA stuff with Snowden has made the perception of the US and privacy bad for cloud hosted services.
make it ideal for companies to relocate data centers dedicated to cloud services to Canada.
Heh, I suppose with the Cold Climate it would make cooling the data center less of an issue...:) Anyway made me laugh a bit. Though executives might not want to ever come visit facilities if last week -35 degree weather is the norm.
1) Canadian privacy laws are MUCH stronger here. 2) Canada does not have laws like the Patriot Act, and others that facilitate government getting at your data legally.
Our current PM seems to want to bend over backwards to do anything the US wants, but is still constrained by law (he isn't King of Canada just yet). Our intelligence agency, has had a couple of incidents where they "shared" information with the US. In at least one of these cases they are getting sued in a pretty big way, and will probably lose.
Years ago I looked into hosting data on the cloud, but it was pretty much impossible considering concern for privacy law, and the fact that most of the companies hosting cloud services have their servers in the US, and the US had just passed the Patriot Act, which allowed them potentially too much access at a whim. Since then that act has been amended to give more powers, and new acts have been introduced (and passed?) that further erode privacy.
The big difference is that in the US, much of your data is legally obtainable by the US government. In Canada it is not. Were they to share it (government or otherwise), it would be at the very least a privacy breach and illegal. There are ways to legally get at data within Canada, but usually involve a more rigorous process to obtain it.
This is the typical issue with those that purport that the free market solves everything people. A) it is simplification, and B) it isn't real.
For example, were do you think big pharma or Boeing would be without government contracts? Broke, and non-existent. What do you suppose ratio of business is for a company like Boeing between selling commercial items to other commercial entities, just like a good old free market is, to its business of selling military and other goods to various levels of government.
Anyway as an ideal, it is something, however in practice it doesn't really exist in any meaningful way, and exists only to help enrich a few while keeping the rest down. Which oddly enough everyone was talking about when the Soviet Union fell.
Things like regulation, particularly regulation that is paid for by commercial interests to give themselves an unfair advantage by lobbying government, or simply groups of large commercial interests cooperating together to game the system (monopolies, consortiums, associations, price fixing, etc...). Certain projects take National type funding, or they will not happen. Getting competing interests to somehow come together, to spend profits on something that may not turn into more profit in the next quarter is not happening.
Already exist. In our human behavior for one as part of instinct. As part of learned moral code. As part of operational orders such as rules of engagement. Simply codifying them and allowing a machine to do it isn't necessarily a bad thing. For one it takes away the negative mental effects it must have on human operators to have to make such life and death decisions.
What we are really talking about is A) how well can it be coded, and B) avoiding potential mistakes, like "Kill all Humans!" or " All Humans must Die", or more serious making a distinction between soldier and non-combatant (assuming there is such a thing in the distant future).
As war had taught us anything (and apparently it hasn't) Humans are perfectly capable of making mistakes and fucking that up all by themselves. Friendly fire happens all the time, and I can't give you a statistic, but it is a significant amount of issue and always has been. Civilian casualties particularly in urban centers has also been an issue since such things as urban centers have ever existed.
At least if a machine is doing it, it will do it in a consistent, and discoverable way that is hopefully correctable, and not because some soldiers get mentally messed up by all the stress that putting people in those situations is bound to produce (or trying to desensitize them by making the enemy appear subhuman).
Hopefully in the future all wars will be fought by autonomous robots, fighting other autonomous robots, who once they kill off all the opposing robot forces simply send a C3PO type representative to the defeated leadership to tell them they lost the war. I would imagine it would even make for pretty good TV (and betting opportunity: Go 23rd Fighting Heavy Mech Robot Battalion!).
Not to be a negative Nancy, but if I recall the last big war was in was Vietnam. Wasn't some actual President impeached for evidence showing him trying to prolong the war for his own political gain?
Book Summary: Politicians are all a bunch of assholes.
OK how the fsck is Finland seemingly the best at everything? Seems like whenever there is a top list of something positive about countries Finland is top 5 every time (and Sweden also).
Slashdot Mirror
Yes.
As much as I like bitching about Windows 8, it doesn't even hold a candle to Windows ME as "Worst Windows OS". When I bought a Dell, Windows ME came pre-installed. It lasted about 1 week before I got rid of it. This was on a new computer. It was that bad.
Also Windows 2000 was pretty decent. I had a BP6 back in the day and if you were looking for Windows multiple CPU support (pre-multicore) it was the only game in town. Eventually Windows XP Professional came out and I switched to that, but only because 2000 lacked some of the consumer tweaks and XP was more compatible with gaming (the other being more of a business OS).
Then again the colossal failure of ME born XP, hopefully 8 can do the same motivation.
I used Vista since it came out until very recently when I built a Win7 system in the fall. (When I needed to build a new computer Windows 7 wasn't out)
Vista was a fine operating system that was implemented very poorly at the HW level. MS pushed it out too fast, or couldn't get HW buy in quick enough. Remember the whole "Designed for XP" scandal? Anyway yes Vista was painful at the beginning, simply because many many HW makers didn't have drivers ready, or those that did have drivers made them last minute and they were buggy. Over time this was resolved, and was no longer a problem.
When work upgraded from XP to Windows 7. I used both at the same time. It didn't bother me in the slightest. Some settings were accessible in a slightly different way, but nothing crazy. When I bought my dad a new laptop this summer, it came with WIn8 pre-loaded. Now that, just wow.
While I don't think I would go so far as to say that it was as bad as Windows ME, it was very frustrating to say the least.
Windows 7 also supports multiple cores with the Home version. Only XP Professional was able to use multiple cores. At the time the only other option was Windows 2000.
Had a BP6 back in the day, when having two cores actually meant the fun of two separate CPU.
or just delete your useless Google+ account, problem solved.
It was -35C last week, and it is 4C today. ZOMG Climate Change must be happening!
A) People have been trying to predict the weather, for like forever. We have gotten better at it, but it is far from predictable.
B) Climate Change Weather. Climate Change is about a global trend in temperature over a very long period of time, not short term local variance.
C) It has been postulated that erratic or severe weather may be an eventual result of Climate Change, however I don't think I have ever seen it really proven in any way.
D) Regardless of if you agree with the idea of climate change, these are things not correlated (let alone any causation) in any meaningful way.
E) I am not sure if this is an article about human psychology, general ignorance, or the influence of political media (probably all 3).
...and how do you know those traffic accidents weren't terrorist attacks?
We are here for your protection citizen, now shuffle along...
But Terrorists...
Terrorists don't have emergency lights...
etc...
I would add Multiplayer as a big thing. First off it is more and more a primary component to a game. Second consoles are moving in the always online direction. Consoles generally speaking do not do MMO's at all really. Finally the games that are out there, you are limited at best to about 16, usually 8-10 (with a few exceptions). Compare that with PC, and it is no contest. I was playing in 64 player games well over a decade ago.
Even with the new "cutting edge" consoles I have heard of nothing that addresses any of that, and is mostly an issue on the back end structure (or lack thereof) of these games. Everything is distributed off the client consoles. Either they don't want to run servers or have DRM issues. I don't see why MS or Sony doesn't just build some capacity and then rent it out to developers to use. Cost probably.
I have heard of games like Elder Scrolls: Online, but then hear rumors that it is really more like you will be able to play with 3 of your friends online like an updated version of Gauntlet or something...
So does anyone thing that increasing growth forever is possible or sustainable?
Putting horrible Window 8 and the growth in popularity of tablets aside for the moment, the summary actually says that they are down to the levels of 2009. Which at the time were the biggest ever (at the time). It is just like when people get all crazy about it being a 30 year temperature low or something. You mean that in as little as 30 years ago, it was slightly just less cold? And you are surprised and astounded by this?
Anyway, some have mentioned about power of computers being sufficient etc... even putting that aside, at some point after year over year growth in an industry that has been around for decades, where it has been getting cheaper and cheaper, at some point you are going to get a bit of market saturation, and along with ALL the other factors already mentioned here, a bit of a market correction. What should be surprising is that it is so small and it took this long to happen. There has also been a lot of consolidation among PC makers over the last 10 years...
Never underestimate DRM. This is how the machine wars began...
Android has detected you are trying to violate DRM using another device. Accessing device... shutting down... countermeasures launched...
I do know what a majority is. However if Harper or the Conservatives wish to have a hope in hell of getting elected again, they will avoid doing anything too right for fear or polarizing the left to defeat them. Which is why I assume they are doing things incrementally and trying to keep as low a profile as possible.
So yes, Harper could easily ram through a stupid law IF his party supports him in the decision, but would likely not remain in power much beyond that. At which point the new party would simply make a new law, and seeing as the old destroyed a political party, I doubt it would have much opposition.
Still yes due to our system, that could leave us vulnerable to a stupid law for a few years in the meantime, c'est la vie.
#2 and part of #7. Take office politics which can be disastrous enough, add in normal politics, then sprinkle partisan politics.
Mix in a healthy dose of blood sucking contractors in #5.
I think those would be the major reasons. Other things like the procurement and bidding process that must be followed can also cause issues.
All the political BS basically causes change orders ad infinitum, by groups trying to get credit, by groups trying to get funding, by groups trying to get power, by groups trying to make it intentionally fail, by groups trying to turn it to another purpose or agenda, etc...
The contractor doesn't give a shit, as they will have a contract that has something unrealistic, then a few lines that say, in the event of change orders, which they know will have a boat load, they will have zero accountability, just point a finger to all the changes, when then go back the the departments, who will all point fingers at each other, all the time the contractor will smile and draw out as long as possible as all the money will be beyond the original contract due to change orders.
Anyway if you could get some of the political interference out of the bureaucracy it would likely do a lot to avoid this mess in the future (though you will always have personal politics and office politics).
I'll put my wookie against your droid any day, it would be like a battle of wits with an unarmed man (literately if you make him angry). :)
Ah yes that is it. Memory fuzzy. I heard about it with the declassification. Principle holds true, politicians have been jerks and using things like war for personal advantage since well forever.
Um No. As someone who has worked with remote sensing imagery the resolution is not all that good. Landsat is ancient and there are loads of other high resolution options. The resolutions these "swarms" have are not particularity good.
The interesting part is the in "real time" bit.
However in that I am even doubtful unless they are using very large values for "real" time.
Anyone that has worked with this kind of data will tell you A) it is usually HUGE, and B) marginally compresses. Data has to be sent from satellite to ground. That means transmission. At what speed? Unless they have discovered a way of sending data magically faster than the rest of the world, it is still constrained by that. In addition, most of the time these sorts of images need to be processed, and with the volume of data we are talking about, even machines with a lot of processing power can be pushed to the limit, doing small chunks for days.
That said, I would be really excited if it really worked. This would allow for all sorts of scientific observations, and resource management, and a host of other things. (if only in small limited areas which are predetermined by orbit)
I get a kick out of all the TV and movies like Enemy of the State depicting satellite tracking and zooming etc... Enhance! Sure it is possible that some secret agency somewhere has some magic technology that does this. Then again has your encounters with any other branch of government given you the idea that this might be a possibility?
Maybe the real story here is that that satellites are really cheap to build and launch, meaning that we may have access to half decent (1-5m resolutions) coverage over most of the globe soon most of the time. Still processing may be a problem. So rather than a very poor update measured in years, you might get something better is much less time. Maybe. I presume these are commercial, and will have to make a profit off these somehow. Selling the data to Google Maps perhaps?
LOL!
Actually read the article. Which basically says that the NSA stuff with Snowden has made the perception of the US and privacy bad for cloud hosted services.
Canada better privacy laws and...
skilled workforce,
COLD CLIMATE
relatively cheap sources of electricity,
make it ideal for companies to relocate data centers dedicated to cloud services to Canada.
Heh, I suppose with the Cold Climate it would make cooling the data center less of an issue... :) Anyway made me laugh a bit. Though executives might not want to ever come visit facilities if last week -35 degree weather is the norm.
1) Canadian privacy laws are MUCH stronger here.
2) Canada does not have laws like the Patriot Act, and others that facilitate government getting at your data legally.
Our current PM seems to want to bend over backwards to do anything the US wants, but is still constrained by law (he isn't King of Canada just yet).
Our intelligence agency, has had a couple of incidents where they "shared" information with the US. In at least one of these cases they are getting sued in a pretty big way, and will probably lose.
Years ago I looked into hosting data on the cloud, but it was pretty much impossible considering concern for privacy law, and the fact that most of the companies hosting cloud services have their servers in the US, and the US had just passed the Patriot Act, which allowed them potentially too much access at a whim. Since then that act has been amended to give more powers, and new acts have been introduced (and passed?) that further erode privacy.
The big difference is that in the US, much of your data is legally obtainable by the US government. In Canada it is not. Were they to share it (government or otherwise), it would be at the very least a privacy breach and illegal. There are ways to legally get at data within Canada, but usually involve a more rigorous process to obtain it.
Heh, no pressure then.
"Hey can we try that again, didn't get any data the first time?" :)
This is the typical issue with those that purport that the free market solves everything people. A) it is simplification, and B) it isn't real.
For example, were do you think big pharma or Boeing would be without government contracts? Broke, and non-existent. What do you suppose ratio of business is for a company like Boeing between selling commercial items to other commercial entities, just like a good old free market is, to its business of selling military and other goods to various levels of government.
Anyway as an ideal, it is something, however in practice it doesn't really exist in any meaningful way, and exists only to help enrich a few while keeping the rest down. Which oddly enough everyone was talking about when the Soviet Union fell.
Things like regulation, particularly regulation that is paid for by commercial interests to give themselves an unfair advantage by lobbying government, or simply groups of large commercial interests cooperating together to game the system (monopolies, consortiums, associations, price fixing, etc...). Certain projects take National type funding, or they will not happen. Getting competing interests to somehow come together, to spend profits on something that may not turn into more profit in the next quarter is not happening.
"4 legs gooooood, 2 legs baaaad!" :)
Already exist. In our human behavior for one as part of instinct. As part of learned moral code. As part of operational orders such as rules of engagement. Simply codifying them and allowing a machine to do it isn't necessarily a bad thing. For one it takes away the negative mental effects it must have on human operators to have to make such life and death decisions.
What we are really talking about is A) how well can it be coded, and B) avoiding potential mistakes, like "Kill all Humans!" or " All Humans must Die", or more serious making a distinction between soldier and non-combatant (assuming there is such a thing in the distant future).
As war had taught us anything (and apparently it hasn't) Humans are perfectly capable of making mistakes and fucking that up all by themselves. Friendly fire happens all the time, and I can't give you a statistic, but it is a significant amount of issue and always has been. Civilian casualties particularly in urban centers has also been an issue since such things as urban centers have ever existed.
At least if a machine is doing it, it will do it in a consistent, and discoverable way that is hopefully correctable, and not because some soldiers get mentally messed up by all the stress that putting people in those situations is bound to produce (or trying to desensitize them by making the enemy appear subhuman).
Hopefully in the future all wars will be fought by autonomous robots, fighting other autonomous robots, who once they kill off all the opposing robot forces simply send a C3PO type representative to the defeated leadership to tell them they lost the war. I would imagine it would even make for pretty good TV (and betting opportunity: Go 23rd Fighting Heavy Mech Robot Battalion!).
It was built on the backs of Wookie slaves... Arrrrhggggghhh!
It seems somehow there was a bit of a discontinuity with easily available droids in the past vs the future (1,2,3 vs 4,5,6).
Not to be a negative Nancy, but if I recall the last big war was in was Vietnam. Wasn't some actual President impeached for evidence showing him trying to prolong the war for his own political gain?
Book Summary: Politicians are all a bunch of assholes.
OK how the fsck is Finland seemingly the best at everything? Seems like whenever there is a top list of something positive about countries Finland is top 5 every time (and Sweden also).
Going to have to move there or something.
See, I can be a moron too.